Ashley's Past

My world
A world of total darkness
I have been blind since birth
A few months after I was born my father vanished
Since then my mother raised me by herself
Without his support, she had to sell her body to earn a living
I don’t know what kind of face she had
But she was always very kind to me
I loved her very much.
But, there came a day when I was five years old
My mother died while lying on her bed
I don’t know why she died
I was young and immature, and didn’t care to learn why
After that, I was taken in by an orphanage contacted by the village headsman
At the orphanage, I lived an empty, repetitive life with no good friends
At some point during that time, I met a certain woman
Like me, she was blind
But she had also lost the ability to even taste or smell
She had been born blind, but as for taste and smell
She told me she had lost it because she had been ruthlessly tortured with powerful drugs
“Torture..? Does that mean they did mean things mean to you?”
“There are many things in this world you can live without knowing. This is one of them... no, perhaps it’s more accurate to say you’re better off not knowing.”
She would not tell me,
But many years after I parted with her, I found out through rumors floating around
Long ago, even though she had been able to live in peace without becoming a burden despite her blindness,
a heartless person living in her village told the church in her village that she was a heretic
Of course, it was absolute bullshit
It was then that she devised her technique
During that time, that five years
In which she was tortured continuously every day
Her technique
A blindness technique
Even without sight, there is no limit to what one can sense from the world around them
The one who taught me that was her
Even now, People talk to me without really getting it
“That thing over there is that color,” They tell me
“I don’t care, I’ve never seen color before,”
“That over there is some incredibly beautiful scenery,”
“I don’t care, I’ve never seen scenery before,”
“Woww, that’s extremely bright,”
“I don’t care, I’ve never seen light before,”
My world
A world of darkness
A world of nothing
“Have you ever listened to what they were saying and thought to yourself, ‘I want to know what they are talking about’?”
“My technique is difficult, and not one that you can learn with a meager effort. That spark of curiosity is essential.”
“First and foremost: It doesn’t matter what you use. Other than sight, you can use everything else to take it all in.”
“Taste, smell, sound, coolness, warmth, hardness, softness. Your world is made up of many various things. Learn them.”
For just under a month,
I would visit her house every day and was taught various things
But one day
“I’m leaving this place tonight.”
“Don’t make that face, I’ve had a lot of fun since meeting you. As thanks for that, I’ve a gift for you.”
While saying that, she gently poked my forehead
She began to make sounds that I did not recognize as words
“Alright, this should do. From now on, listen as hard as you can. If you put effort into it, you should be able to gradually hear more and more variations of sound.”
The next day, she was already gone
From then on, just as she had said I was able to hear many new kinds of sounds
Trivial sounds I had never even stopped to consider before
Even the sounds made by my own body echoed out
The world around me was a full of sound
That mysterious song she would always hum to herself…
It was then that I understood why
My world
A world of darkness
But
A world without limits
Her father was more or less healthy.
He did not leave because of any kind of discord or domestic disturbances; rather, he was afraid of his own child, who had been born both blind and with pale blue skin.
Her skincolor is the result of an atavism, or genes that had managed to skip a few generations. At the same time she inherited a talent for magic.
One of her ancestors definitely had blue skin and a talent for magic like Ashley does now.
As for her mother’s cause of death, perhaps suicide or illness.
In regards to the blind woman who traveled from place to place working odd jobs, she was a so-called witch.
Her magical power was provided by neither demons nor contracts of any sort, but rather her own ability.
She could also sense Ashley’s faint, budding magical power.
She had the appearance of a young woman, but she had actually aged well.
Nowadays there’s nothing like witch trials anymore; the idea that witches looked younger than they were is something from that time.
Though the guy who betrayed her was partially right, she did not use magic to make up for her blindness.
That was an ability she had gained from straining with great effort to use senses other than her eyes.
Her gift to Ashley was something akin to a minor jumpstart on Ashley’s inherent magical power in order to awaken it.
It is something that would not have worked at all on someone without any magical power of their own.
It may seem that it was written as if the gift gave her the power to hear things, but please take it as an awakening of her magical power and nothing else.
The first meeting with Edward
The year Ashley turned 15
At a particular lord’s manor,
It was decided that she would be allowed to live in to work as a maidservant.
“Hey hey, head maid, izzit it true there’s a new girl comin’?”
“What vulgar speech! This isn’t just some bar!”
“How strict~
So, what kinda girl is she?”
“Hmph… Anyway, she was able to learn all the chores in one day. Though she’s blind, she can work just as well as the rest of us.”
“Hm~mm. Is she cute?”
“…I believe she is somewhat attractive.”
“Oooh.”
“So here you are! Lord Edward!”
“Whoops, they found me!”
“Do not move from there, young man, I shall be there in just a moment!”
“I’ve got something important to take care of, so I’ll let you handle this!”
“Ah!? Wait a moment!”
“It seems there’s something going on over there…”
“Oh! It’s the new maid.”
“Um, yes… Erm, it seems rather lively over there, did something happen?”
“The feudal lord is hiding again.”
Insert untranslatable play on words here
“That idio…” Cough, cough. “Ahem. It’s something that happens often, don’t pay attention to it.”
“I, I see…”
“At any rate, if you find him… Capture him. Don’t you –dare- let him go. Understand?”
“Y, yes…”
“You, hiding under those curtains over there…”
“Aa~h, I’ve been fou~nd…”
“Male, around twenty and a half, relatively muscular, with a height no less than 180 cm… and a somewhat relaxed voice…”
“That’s amazing, you can tell that much?”
“Ah, e, excuse me, I have a habit of looking at people I’ve never met before…”
“Looking? Isn’t your eyesight…?”
“Ah, yes… I look with sound,”
“Ooh.”
---
“I’m standing here nude right now.”
“That’s a lie… The scent of your clothing is strong, and I can hear every rustle it makes in the air.”
“Tch…”
---
“Hey hey, Ashley.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Heyy, you can’t call me by my name even though I’m always askin ya to?”
“B, but… if some strange rumors start up, it’ll be an inconvenience to the lord…”
“You worry about the strangest things. If that happens I can just have them all call me by name, and that’ll fix it, right? So then, let’s do that!”
“A, please wait! Ah…” She sighed in exasperation.
---
“Lord Edward.”
“What’s up, Ashley?”
“Is it really okay to do this?”
“It’ll be fiiiine, if we just have the butler take care of it later there shouldn’t be any problems!”
“Um, about the butler… He’s standing right behind you…”
Edward turns to see the butler standing menacingly over him.
---
About a year after she started working, there came a particular day.
---

And that's all I have translated. What follows is Ashley using her advanced hearing capabilities to help Edward expose a merchant that was kidnapping Ed's peasants and selling them as slaves.

After that it is assumed she becomes a Maid-Knight, then a full on knight around 19 or so.